Urinals are normally flushed with a manually activated lever, foot pedal, or the like to deliver flush water to the urinal. Attention has recently focused on means of flushing urinals, particularly in heavily-used public settings, in a manner which controls the amount of water which is used in order to avoid unnecessary waste of water.
Attention has also been given to providing hands-free operation, whereby an automatically-activated flushing means dispenses with the need for the user to touch any part of the urinal to activate flushing. To address these concerns, the art has disclosed urinals which include a sensing means to detect the presence of a user (or the departure of a user) to activate flushing. Exemplary of prior art systems employing a sensing means to activate a flush mechanism are the following: U.S. Pat. No. 4,309,781 to Lissau; U.S. Pat. No. 2,738,448 to Bokster; U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,583 to Yoshida et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,955 to Sakakibara; and UK Patent Application 2 245 288, published Jan. 2, 1992.
Conventional lever-operated flush mechanisms are still in widespread use, but the potential for germ transmission exists using a handle flush activation, and users may forego flushing the urinal rather than pulling the handle. It would therefore be desirable to limit the amount of user contact required to a minimum, while still permitting manual operation of the flush mechanism.